Less Beets, More Beer

As part of the whole organic thing, Big Jed and I decided to start a garden. She has quite a bit of land, so in return for my company several times a month (she lives about an hour away) and paying for my half of things, she offered to take care of the day to day stuff. Well, unfortunately, the mild summer we had caused the tomatoes to not turn red, which made me think some fried green tomatoes were in order. I have never had them, but I like fried and I like tomatoes. Turns out - I don't like fried tomatoes. Like, at all. You know who else has never had them and suddenly does not like them? The boy. But, it's OK, because there aren't that many...

About half of the garden was herbs, and this one was BY FAR my favorite. It is called Lemon Verbena and it is very good in couscous and with chicken. I cannot even tell you how good it tastes/smells. I recommend going out and buying some right this second! You can read the rest of this post later. I'll wait.

Last but not least, the prettiest part of the garden, the sunflowers Big Jed planted around the edge of the garden.

It has been an interesting experience, the garden. As most of you know, I am not a big fan of nature. I enjoy watching it, from inside the comfort of my home, and I enjoy spending afternoons/mornings/or any other brief period of time in it. But, I hate bugs. HATE BUGS. And spiders. And my back, you know, sucks ass.

So, the first few times I went up to help Big Jed with the garden, helping consisted of me sitting in a lawn chair getting drunk while she weeded. However, it was too much for one person, so I recruited the boy to assist in the weeding, while I sat in a lawn chair and got drunk. I am the best helper ever. As the summer went on and my back got better, I started to help. Can we talk for a minute about how many species of bugs live in a garden? Not to mention the quantity of them. And the constantly being buzzed by flies and bees. It was my own personal hell.

But, it also felt kind of good eating food I helped to grow. I learned a lot too; about growing seasons and organic solutions to bugs and fertilizer. This year, we plan on starting the planning earlier and growing all of the seedlings ourselves. And planting less beets. Big Jed, did you read that? LESS BEETS.